Melamine test for meat in HK

The discovery of excessive levels of melamine in eggs supplied by mainland companies has prompted Hong Kong authorities to expand health tests to meat products, a senior official said yesterday.

Hong Kong health officials had announced on Saturday that 4.7 parts per million (ppm) of melamine was found in eggs supplied by a division of the mainland's Dalian Hanwei Enterprise Group in Liaoning province.

The legal limit for melamine in food products in Hong Kong is 2.5 ppm.

The Hong Kong Special Administrative Region's (SAR) Secretary for Food and Health York Chow said melamine might have come from the feed given to the chickens.

"The initial opinion of experts is that there is a problem with the (chicken) feed," Chow said on Saturday.

A day later, he said results of the tests on eggs have prompted officials to expand the tests to mainland meat products.

Hong Kong officials will step up tests on eggs imported from the mainland, too.

Calls to Dalian Hanwei Enterprise Group, based in Liaoning's port city Dalian, went unanswered on Sunday.

Before the egg scandal, melamine was found in baby milk food.

More than 3,600 children are still suffering from numerous urinary ailments, including kidney stones.

Altogether 60,000 infants fell victim to contaminated milk food, and four succumbed to their illness.

The SAR government said it also found excessive amounts of melamine in Blueberry Cream Sandwich crackers made by Philippine company Croley Foods MFG Corp.

Meanwhile, Premier Wen Jiabao has pledged that China's food exports would meet global standards and win the trust of the people across the world, saying lessons had been learned from the milk scandal.

"Through our actions and high quality food products, we will win the trust of the Chinese people and the people in the rest of the world," he told reporters at the end of the 7th Asia-Europe Meeting in Beijing on Saturday.

China has made great efforts to improve its food safety system after last month's milk scandal, Wen said.

"After the (melamine) incident, we took prompt steps to work out regulations on product safety in the dairy industry."

Wen reiterated that the government was partly to blame for the milk scandal because it was responsible for regulating the industry.

"This is not only a problem of enterprises, this is also a problem and task of the government, especially in the field of regulation and management," he said.